Good Morning Wednesday...
Father thank You for this new day. Thank You for giving us Brothers and Sisters to share in this wonderful journey back to You. Please use us to help the hurting, the sick, the fatherless, and the weak. Help us to show Your Love in this dark world, because we know Love covers a multitude of sins.
- Follow The Leader. There Is Only ONE.☝️
Before we move on in The Book of Revelation let's take just a minute today to talk about leadership. Leadership is a subject there are literally hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of books written about. Where do most of these books get it wrong? They go wrong when they teach that leadership comes from "within us." Most of these books teach that if we, by our own power, influence others, we will have them follow us correctly. Most "self-help" leadership books teach "by our own power" we can manipulate our situation, team, or a group to do what we say. While this may be true, we can manipulate others to do what we want, if we aren't ourselves following the right path...we can lead ourselves right into the enemies trap. So what is it we must do to be a good leader? Follow. Because God's Word tells us "no man is good (Mark 10:18)" and only God Himself Is Good, why would we want to follow any one else's instructions besides His. Our Father Gave Us A Perfect Example Of Leadership...In His Perfect Son.
The world tells us "the leader" goes first, The Bible says the leader should put himself last. The world tells us that "leaders lead," The Bible tells us leaders follow. Let's get a couple witnesses from Our Perfect Leader on that:
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
Luke 9:23
“And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”
Mark 9:35
Our Savior Yeshua, Jesus Christ, gathered his disciples and what is the first command He gave them? ... "Follow Me." They all became leaders of the first century church and let Our Father and Savior work "through them" to change this world forever. 2000 years later and we still talk about their "Acts" in The Bible and they are still all relevant today as they were then. That's Amazing! How did they get this kind of amazing leadership? They followed...Jesus, Yeshua, The Prince of Peace, The Light of All People.
Think about this:
You are in unfamiliar territory and you don't know where you are going. You have to follow a friend to get where you are going. Since you don't truly know where you are or how to get where you are going, are you going to just drive off and try to get there by "your own power?" Of course not. We have to trust our friend to get where we are going. We have to accept our friends leadership otherwise we get lost. We don't start paying attention to random things and try to make it on our own... because we don't know where we are at. We must focus on them and follow or we will get lost. We also have to follow them closely. If we get ahead, we get lost. If we fall behind, we get lost. It is the same with Our Ultimate Friend, Our Savior and Messiah Yeshua, Jesus Christ. We must follow Him to get to the right place in order to lead others and this comes through self sacrifice, humility, and kindness. This is how Our Savior was a leader, and this is the perfect example we must follow. If we try to do it "by our own power" eventually we become prideful, haughty and we all know what happens when we get prideful. Let's take a look:
“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18
All the great leaders in The Bible besides Yeshua, Jesus Christ, followed God when they were successful. Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, and many others were great men of God Almighty when following Him. But what happened when they followed their own intuitions? Adam fell, Noah got drunk, Abraham had a rebellious child, and David committed adultery. These are the things that end up happening when we lead by "our own power." We must accept we are a fallen people and need A Better Leader than ourselves.
We have to trust Our Savior and High Priest to lead us where we really need to go, otherwise we are just following an inferior leader, whether that is ourselves or another person. We have to accept His Leadership. We must follow His Will before ours. If we but stay focused on His Leadership, His Path, His Direction, His Example, we will be in a much better position to lead others than any position we could ever find on our own. He Will Lead Us Where We Need To Go. A bonus to following Him...He Will Reveal To Each And Everyone One Of Us Our Own Special Life Purpose. Praise His Name!
The Leadership of Our Savior, The Word of God:
Yeshua, Jesus Christ Our Savior, made leaders by telling His People:
“Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 4:19
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
John 10:27
“The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.”
John 1:43
“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”
John 12:26
A copy of this devotion, pictures with verses, and other encouragement for sharing, is available at:
https://servantofyeshua7.weebly.com
Thank You and Yahweh Yeshua Ha'Mashiach, God Our Father and His Son, Bless You!